Give Me Your Hands, If We Be Friends
by bluerain1984
Summary: The texture of a honeycomb, filled with golden nectar. The innocent laughter of children. The feeling of having a friend beside him, and a touch of magic. Was the funny boy he found in the garden just a summer night's dream? Or was he very real, and standing beside him? Oneshot. Sherlock/John pre-slash fic.


AN: I extend a big thanks to my collaborator, Tekawolf, who wrote this with me at first as a bit of crack fiction, until the plot bunny begged to be made in to something proper.

None of the characters are mine, much of the background was taken from various fairy lore around the world, and of course, what belongs to the Bard remains his forever.

Enjoy!

* * *

_The killer prefers women from the age range of twenty to twenty six. He never goes above that number- though to be fair to him, he has only claimed three victims, but the pattern always establishes itself early. Likely has a history of assault. Might suggest to Lestrade to question former girlfriends for further evidence later… Have to catch him first. Wears trainers, obviously, by the tread left in the residue on the kitchen floor- size 10.5, high arch. Most likely suffers from lower back ache due to improper arch support._

Sherlock lay across the sofa, eyes shut and fingertips pressed together as he held his steepled hands beneath his nose, fingers lying over his mouth. The current case was quite intriguing, and very much a welcome distraction. But he was in the worst part of these serial killer cases, now. The _waiting. _The _damned_ waiting. The killer hadn't made the proper mistake just yet. Nothing to actually expose him readily enough through the clues, though Sherlock was closing in on him, anyway.

_Serial killers are always hard, but they inevitably make a mistake in the end._

As he mused on the clues, he heard the sound of feet ascending the stairs.

_Low center of gravity, heavier mass up top than below, steady, though laden due to carrying excess weight._

_John's home with the shopping._

He did not bother sitting up as the former soldier walked in, hands clutching at bags that were bulging with assorted boxes, cellophane bags, and vegetables. Instead he listened as John shuffled in and made his way to the kitchen through the side-door.

"Don't get up, I can manage," the doctor called as he set his wares down with a grunt.

_Tedious. Every time._

After a minute, Sherlock swung his feet off of the couch, letting his feet hit the wooden floor. Rose in a single motion to them, and stepped on to, then over, the coffee table before crossing to the kitchen.

"We didn't need this much." He muttered as he used a single index finger to lightly pull open one of the bags. Tea, biscuits, a canister of oats, a bag of long-grain rice.

"Yes, we did. Rather, _I_ need it, Sherlock, and you _should_ need it, even though you never eat anything." John answered in rebuttal as he opened another bag up. "But even if we didn't, the trip was worth it."

Sherlock was about to inquire why, though he suspected it had to do with chatting up a woman. Well, he suspected so until he saw John pulling out a box that had a very… peculiar item inside of it.

"New product, apparently. They were giving away free samples down at the Tesco," John said as he passed the box over to Sherlock, then retrieved another for himself. "The girl handing them out was quite lovely, too."

_Of course,_ Sherlock thought, bored at the mere mentioning of it. But he did look at the box. Inside of the brightly colored, pastel yellow packaging, there lay a comb. A honeycomb, though much bigger than the type packaged in some honey jars (_Subtle marketing to make the consumer purchase it with false promises of 'healthy, humane, and organically made' products_). No, this was a large rectangular slice replicating one taken from a hive. He opened the box, then thick, clear packaging that held the comb itself inside.

The scent that hit his nose made his silver-grey eyes widen as he adjusted the data collected from the initial observation. This wasn't merely coloured syrup within a wax, comb-shaped candy. This was a real honey comb, with honey still inside of the small octagonal chambers.

"I know, yeah?" John asked. The comment made Sherlock turn his head. How had he deduced Sherlock's surprise at the authenticity of the comb?

"Surprised me, too," John when on. "But it's real. Real honey and everything." John opened up his own packet and he took a large bite from the comb, causing the wax to crunch and shatter. Honey slowly began to coat his fingertips while the sticky, liquid gold dripped a bit down his chin. John let out a sigh.

"This is absolutely delicious," John said, his voice a soft moan.

Sherlock rolled his eyes, but looked down at the 'treat' that now started to coat his own fingers. He raised it to his mouth and took a bite- much smaller than John's in comparison. As he felt the wax crackle and melt against his tongue, he felt a sense of… déjà vu come to him. Suddenly he found himself reliving a moment he had not thought on in a long while.

_A small boy, with small hands, not yet long or slender- his hands- holding on to a honey-coated piece of comb. He had the same honey coming down his chin in thick glops, and it was the epitome of summer and happiness as he ate the sweet, crispy, comb._

A blink of his eyes and the slightly twitch of his head brought him back to the present, but he said aloud, "I haven't eaten a honey comb since I was a child."

"Mmh, me either," John remarked beside him as he took another bite of his own comb, and licked at his fingers. "This is good, but nothing beats one fresh from a hive, you know?"

Sherlock's back stiffened. He felt suddenly cold as another image sprang from the recesses of his mind to take up space in the very front of it.

_His clothes were tattered and filthy, but he was smiling. This boy, older than Sherlock, with his messy clothing and messy, spiked-up hair, bit in to the recently claimed prize._

"_Nothing beats one fresh from the hive." The boy, hair the color of wheat in the sun, broke his sweet in half, then handed it down to Sherlock._

"_Try it. You'll like it, lots."_

Sherlock looked from the comb in his hand to properly observe John. His eyes flicked back, forth, up, down, as he took in everything about the short Army-doctor standing beside him.

_No. No, it was…that was… That was a game. A child's fancy that passed as quickly as it had come._

_I'd deleted that… I don't recover what I delete. I had _forgotten_ that summer!_

He dropped the sticky rectangle of wax in his hand, and backed away from John. Two steps. Three. John turned to Sherlock, and his dark, indigo eyes went wide.

"Sherlock? What? What is it?"

Sherlock's fingers flexed. Then he clenched the honey coated digits closed as he merely stared at John. Memory, long discarded and, he had thought, entirely removed from his mind, returned to him in full.

* * *

_**June, 1983. Sussex, England**_

_He ran past the small carriage house, feet light but swift in their determination to escape from the local village boys. As he passed by, a loose nail snagged at his suit-jacket and rather than struggle, he slipped right out of it and made it on to the lands of the estate. The boys would stop, now, surely. This was private property, after all!_

_The manor rose up high, built centuries ago from grey stones. Some places within the massive home, though fitted with electricity, were still either bitterly cold from drafts in the winter, or sweltering in the summer from the lack of air-conditioning. The windows had recently been redecorated with the lighter curtains reserved for the summer months, the light and pale fabric peeking at the corners and sides where they were gathered up to allow the light and the air in. The Holmes estate was, regardless, well-kept and maintained. A glorious reminder of the past that was updated with the passing of each generation._

_He was _not_ going in to the manor, however. No, Sherlock hated that place. It was too large inside, and empty, with too many rooms to serve for a single family of four. Yet for all that it was so empty inside, and so cavernous in size, it was also horribly claustrophobic. The little boy sometimes believed that he was slowly dying in there. Being suffocated by the ancient home. He needed to be out. He needed to get away!_

_But there was the rub. For outside- away- was where the idiots- the stupid boys and girls who observed, but didn't _see_- who didn't understand _anything_- were waiting. Waiting to taunt him. Waiting with words like 'Weirdo' and 'Freak'. Waiting with their hands curled up in fists to hit him, and their feet ready to kick him._

_He couldn't leave. And he didn't want to stay._

_He had a refuge, though. Away from those children. Away from the house. He ran behind the manor, now, turning a corner around the grey walls, and slipping in to the gardens in the back of the house. Clean and groomed pathways made of short green grass skirted through thick and vibrantly colored quadrants of flours, surrounded and shielded all around by tall trees. The little boy ran along these paths, and past the hideous white-marble statue of the woman in the hat, and through the flower bushes, taller than he was, in to his favorite hiding place._

_No one would ever come here. The gardeners only came near to trim grass and tend the flowers, but they didn't get too close to this particular spot. Just within the trees, where the massive nest hung._

_The garden staff was afraid of the nest that hung heavily from the tree's branch. He didn't fear the bees too much. He knew that as long as he did not approach the nest itself, or step on any of the colony's members, he would not be stung._

_Sherlock dropped down on to the ground, and drew his knees up. His black curls clung to his forehead in sweat, and he looked at the pale legs that were bare beneath the hem of his short trousers. From the knee down, they were covered in bruises, slowly spreading dark purple against the white skin. He looked at his hands. Small scrapes against his knuckles from his attempts to defend himself. He touched one of his cheeks and hissed from lesion on it, as well._

_His silver-blue eyes started to water after he looked over his injuries. Then, quietly he began to snuffle as he tried hard, very, very hard, not to cry. He failed. He hiccuped a sob and drew his bruised knees up to his chest, and curled himself up tightly._

"_Oi? You alright?"_

_The voice startled him, and the little boy jumped. He blinked and looked for the person who'd spoke. Rustling from the trees gave away the trespasser's position. Sherlock jumped up to his feet, small hands clenching in to fists at his side._

"_Who's there?" he demanded indignantly. He tilted his chin up just slightly, trying to appear commanding, but the sniffling from his cry before muddled that. "Come out!"_

_A foot stepped out from behind the tree, while a hand slid over the bark of the trunk. Slowly, another boy emerged. He sounded like one of the children from London (he used to go to London, to see his gran. Sherlock heard how the common children talked, there). But there was something...odd, about him._

_The other boy was taller than him, and older, obviously. Possibly the same age as Mycroft. He had bright yellow hair that stuck up all around his head in spikes, except for bits in the front that hung over his eyes. One eye was deep blue, like the ocean. The other was a warm brown, like hot chocolate. The older boy wore what at a glance was over-large hand-me-down clothing, covered in dirt, but Sherlock saw more than others did. He noted that the strange boy's shirt had rips and tears in it that seemed half-mended with leaves. His trousers had threads of ivy in them. His feet had neither socks nor shoes on them. But the most peculiar features on the boy were his ears!_

_The ears were not rounded, as his own were. Rather than a perfect curve, they slanted just slightly and went up in to points. They were not long points- quite short, really- but he had never seen anyone with such ears before. Not real people, anyway._

_Sherlock said to the other boy, "This is… This place is _my_ place. You don't belong here. This is 'private property'. My father can have you thrown out."_

_The older boy with the strange ears only smiled. He rubbed at his short, stubby nose, and said, "May be, but you won't do it, will you?"_

"_What?"_

"_Have your dad throw me out. If this place's your spot, then I'm guessing that you're the only one who comes round?" The older boy walked forward and stopped just at the tree with the heavy bee nest. He was quite correct, too. Not that he would know that._

"_I… I can still make you leave," Sherlock said, stubbornly._

"_How? And why? I'm not doing anything wrong. Didn't mean to disturb you or anything, either. But you were crying. And you look a bit roughed up."_

"**I wasn't crying**!_" the little boy insisted._

"_If you say so. But I'd cry if I were beat up," the older boy mentioned._

_Sherlock shifted from one foot to the next. He took a breath. "Why are you in my garden?"_

"_Oh, it's yours? Thought it was your dad's. Maybe your mum's."_

_The smaller child puffed his cheeks and he demanded, "Why are you here?"_

"_Oi, don't get angry," the older boy said. "Didn't mean any trouble. Just came for the honey."_

_The other boy turned away, then, and grabbed at a protruding knot in the trunk. Then, he began to climb up._

_Sherlock took a step. What was he doing?_

"_You'll fall!" he said._

"_No I won't," replied the older boy._

"_You'll get stung!"_

"_No I won't," the other repeated. "Bees like me. Most animals do."_

_Sherlock watched as the older boy, with the leaf-mended clothes and the pointed ears, climbed up the trunk of the tree, then swung himself up on to the branch that held the hive. Silver-blue eyes observed as the other child sat on the branch, legs swinging slightly as he reached toward the nest, and, with not a single drone alarmed or angered, opened it up. Then, the older boy withdrew from the interior of the nest a large segment of comb. He stayed on the branch, the comb dripping with fresh golden honey, and seemed to be carefully picking something from it. Small white spheres like pebbles were taken from the comb and put back in to the nest._

"_Can't take the babies. They get a little miffed if you leave them in when you take the comb out." The older boy licked at the fingers he had used to extract the larva, then, with a small grunt and a push, he dropped down from the branch._

"_Watch out!" cried the smaller boy, but it wasn't necessary. The older child should have been injured by the drop, but he landed safely. Squarely on his feet, with a cat's agility._

_It was incredible._

_As he stood up, he raised his prize up, and said, "Ta."_

"_How did you do that?" Sherlock exclaimed. "They didn't sting you!"_

"_I told you they wouldn't. They like me." The older boy walked over, and took a bite from the taken (given?) honeycomb. He let out a soft moan, and smiled as the sticky honey dripped over his chin._

"_Nothing beats one fresh from the hive." The boy broke his sweet in half, and then handed it down to Sherlock._

_Sherlock jutted his bottom lip out, while his eyebrows scrunched together. "What are you doing?" he asked the strange boy._

"_Giving you some. Here. It's good," the older boy replied._

_He shook his head, dark curls bouncing around. "No thank you."_

"_Oh, come on. Try it. You'll like it lots."_

_The younger boy reluctantly took the offered comb, and looked at it. After a moment of consideration, he asked, "Why?"_

"_Why what?" asked the older child._

"_Why are you sharing?"_

"_Because," answered the other boy. "It's too big for just me. And you were hurt, and you looked like you needed a sweet. Just take a bite."_

_Sherlock glanced from the older boy to the comb and the gooey honey. Finally, he chose to take just one bite, and raised the comb up to his mouth._

_The waxy comb burst within his mouth. Shattered like spun sugar across his tongue, but sweeter, and slightly chewy. The honey released from the chambers of the comb and flooded his mouth with its bright taste. The smell was around him, too. Sugary, warm, almost as fragrant as the flowers around him. They likely had made this honey from their very garden._

_Sherlock's lips curved up, and he took another bite. Then another. Soon, he too had honey coating his mouth, chin, and hands. The beating from the idiot children was forgotten, because he had a honeycomb and someone had shared it with him. He was eating summer and sunshine, and it was very, very good._

_After they had cleaned up from their treat, Sherlock dropped back down on the ground. He felt light. As if he could float up in to the air, if he wanted to. And he was happy. The boy was rarely happy. He felt it when he could play with his chemistry set. Or when he found something like an intact lizard skeleton in the garden. But he rarely felt happy after interacting with someone. Unless it was Mycroft, but Mycroft was not very playful anymore. He said there was no time for it now._

_Rubbish._

_Sherlock looked up at the older boy, and then asked him, "Where did you come from?"_

"_Far away," the older boy said. "I'm just passing through while I ramble."_

"_London?" Sherlock asked him._

"_Sort of," the boy answered._

"_You can't be 'sort of' from London." Sherlock countered._

"_I can. I am. I like to travel. But I don't stay a lot."_

"_Why?"_

"_Cause," no explanation was forthcoming, though. Instead the older boy asked, "What's your name?"_

"…_Why do you want to know?" Sherlock asked him._

"_Because we're friends. And friends do that. They share honeycombs and their names."_

"_I don't have friends," Sherlock told him, his mouth turning down in a pout. "No one likes me. They try to lie to me, and make fun of me. Call me 'freak' and 'nutter'. They're all stupid. Everyone's stupid."_

"_I like you," said the older boy. "Am I stupid, too?"_

_Sherlock thought, then shook his head. "No. You're odd."_

"_And you're not a freak," the other boy said. He approached Sherlock, and reached both hands out to him. "Here."_

_Sherlock looked at the offered hands. Then up again._

"_If we're friends, give me your hands."_

_He considered saying no. This boy was strange, and he made no sense. But he stood up, and put his small fingers in to the older boy's slightly golden-hued ones._

"_Now," the older boy said, "What's your name?"_

"_Sherlock," he answered. "I'm six."_

"_You're really smart for six," the older boy said._

"_Everyone else is just stupid," Sherlock retorted. "Your turn. What's _your_ name?"_

_The older boy gave him a smile as bright as sunlight through tree-boughs._

"_Fedelmid."_

_At that moment, a call came from the direction of the house._

"_Sherlock? Mon agnelet? Où êtes-vous, mon enfant?"_

"_Maman!" Sherlock said softly, hearing his mother's voice. "Mummy's calling. I'm sorry." He slipped his hands out of Fedelmid's, and turned around._

"_Oi, hang on!" the older boy called out as he reached for Sherlock's hand again. "Can't let you go in like that. She'll have a fright." Fedelmid placed his left hand on to Sherlock's cheek, and Sherlock felt a tingling. Then warmth spread through his skin. Fedelmid dropped his hand, and knelt down in front of the younger boy. He placed both hands on the most prominent bruises on Sherlock's legs, and that same tingling-warmth went through the skin there, too._

_Sherlock looked down at his legs, and saw, as Fedelmid withdrew his hands, that the bruises had vanished. He touched the cheek that had been bruised, and it was healed, too!_

"_Now you just look like you've been playing," Fedelmid said._

_Sherlock looked up at the mix-matched eyes of the older boy. "What are you?" he asked him. Normal people- not even special people like him or Mycroft or Father and Mummy- could heal bruises like that, or jump from high tree limbs and not get hurt. No one walked around in clothed patched with leaves._

"_I'm a fairy," Fedelmid answered. "Now, go on before your mum sees you back here. I'll be back tomorrow."_

"…_Really?" Sherlock asked him._

"_Really, am I a fairy? Or really am I coming back?" Fedelmid's voice sounded amused._

"_I…Both," Sherlock answered._

"_Yes, really. And yes, really," Fedelmid told him. "I promise." He wiggled his fingers at Sherlock, and dashed off in to the trees. Sherlock took a step to go after him, but another call from his mother made him turn, and, with his heart already pounding in his chest, ran back to the manor house._

_Every day after that, for three weeks, Fedelmid returned, as he promised, to that spot in the garden. Every time they met, the fairy-boy would have either some honeycomb pieces, claimed from the nest above, ready for them to share in the June sun, or something interesting to give to him from far away. A stone with flecks of blue deep in the grey rock. A mouse skull._

_A week after their first meeting, he'd been given an empty turtle shell. Not a big shell, but a small one. It was the size of the six-year-old Sherlock's hand._

"_Found that while I was in Scotland," Fedelmid told him after the younger child had taken the shell and began to examine it._

"_When did you go to Scotland?" Sherlock asked._

"_Yesterday, after I left."_

"_No you didn't!" Sherlock exclaimed. "Otherwise you wouldn't be here today."_

"_I did. Fairies can sometimes teleport from one place to another, with magic. That's how I ramble."_

_Fedelmid told Sherlock that his father was a human man, and his mother was a wood sprite. He said his mother had decided to pretend to be human and live with his father, and that their house was in London. But Fedelmid was more like his mother, and had magic, unlike his sister who was more like their father and did not. He sometimes stayed in London to go to school. But during the summer, or on holidays, or sometimes after school ended, Fedelmid would use his magic and go traveling._

"_Why do you leave?" Sherlock asked him._

"_Because I'm bored," Fedelmid said. "It gets very dull sometimes, in London. So I go all around. And when I'm not traveling, or with my mum and dad and my little sister, I go to Tir-n'an-og."_

"_Tirn-what?"_

"_Tir-n'an-og," Fedelmid explained. "It's the land of the fairies. Where we come from."_

_Fedelmid told him everything about Tir-n'an-og. About the trooping fairies and the solitary fae. About the Seelie Court, ruled by Oberon and Titania (whom he remembered from Father's Shakespeare books), while the Unseelie Court was ruled by The Green Man and Queen Mab._

"_The Green Man's my grand-dad," Fedelmid told him one day, two weeks after their first meeting in the garden. The boys were lying on the grass, looking up at the pale blue sky._

"_No he isn't," said Sherlock._

"_Yes he is," replied Fedelmid. "In Germany he's called the 'Eorl Koing'. He likes to hide in the trees by roadsides. In the old days, he'd wait for people on horse-back, and sometimes get people to leave in to the woods with him. He wanted them to meet my aunts."_

_Sherlock remembered that name from an old song that his mother liked. "I thought he took children away."_

"_He used to," Fedelmid said. "But he doesn't take anyone now-a-days. He's busy. And people are harder to talk to in cars."_

_That made Sherlock giggle. Soon Fedelmid was giggling with him. It really was an absurd notion, but Sherlock still thought it was funny._

_Sherlock did not tell _anyone_ about his magical friend. It was a precious secret that he kept. He didn't want anyone to make him stop coming to the garden. He wanted to meet with Fedelmid every day._

_The only person who knew about the secret at all was Mycroft._

_Sherlock had told his older brother about Fedelmid the very first day, after he had come inside, dirty and sticky and scolded by their mother for being such a mess and losing his jacket. But Mycroft knew that something was amiss. He knew Sherlock had been beaten up again, but not as badly as other times._

_Sherlock readily told Mycroft about the village boys who had hit him, and about the fairy-boy who had made the worst of the bruises disappear after eating honeycomb together._

"_Sherlock, you already get in to trouble for being more intelligent than other children," Mycroft had said. "You don't need to make mother and father worry about you more by making up stories."_

"_I'm not making it up!" Sherlock had insisted. "Fedelmid's real! He went up in to the tree, and got the comb and didn't get stung or anything!"_

"_He's a figment!" Mycroft said. But Sherlock merely stuck out his tongue, called him an idiot, and went to his room._

_Mycroft could say he was pretending all he liked. Sherlock knew that Fedelmid was real._

_One day, three weeks after their meeting, Sherlock ran afoul the village children again. When he met with Fedelmid that afternoon, he was once again bruised and hurting, and he didn't try to hide the tears that streaked down his plump cheeks._

"_I hate them! And Mummy just pets me and tells me to be strong. Father says I need to pretend to be like them. Mycroft doesn't care," the small boy whined. "I hate everyone!"_

"_You don't hate me, do you?" Fedelmid asked him._

_Sherlock shook his head. "No! You're not stupid or try to make me pretend that it's fine to be like them. You don't call me names… You're my only friend."_

_Fedelmid smiled, but his miss-colored eyes didn't share the sentiment. Instead, he said, "In Tir-n'an-og, everyone would like you."_

"_Really?" Sherlock asked._

"_Yes," Fedelmid said. "Because you're clever and special. They'd never call you names."_

"_I wish I lived in Tir-n'an-og," Sherlock muttered as he hugged at his knees._

"…_Why don't you?" Fedelmid asked him. Sherlock was confused. __ Fedelmid went on, saying, "Come with me! We can live in Tir-n'an-og. We can go and you can meet all the fairies, and meet both of the Kings and Queens, and we can eat honey and sweet bread all day long, and we'll be best friends forever!"_

_The idea struck Sherlock as mad, but also very good. It sounded much better than being made fun of and hit and patronized here. He made a loud sniffle and nodded his curl-topped head._

"_Yes," Sherlock agreed readily. "I'll go with you."_

"_Great!" Fedelmid cheered. "We'll go tonight! I'll be waiting right here. On this spot. Sneak out and we'll go off to Tir-n'an-og, and you'll never be sad or lonely ever again. I promise."_

_Sherlock's lips turned up at the familiar words. Every time Fedelmid said the words, he knew that the fairy spoke the truth. He never once had lied to Sherlock, and he didn't doubt that he told the truth in this instance._

_So, after they had said goodbye, Sherlock ran back in to the manor. He didn't give away his plans, even though he was practically vibrating with the excitement he felt. He didn't say a word to his parents, even when they asked about the few bruises that Fedelmid hadn't healed up before their parting. Instead, he went about the afternoon and evening as he normally did, until night fell upon the estate._

_He packed a small suitcase with a change of clothes, and his favorite book, _Treasure Island_, then he threw on the scarf he'd been given for Christmas, and he began his stealthy escape from the house to make his way outside._

_He walked the familiar path to their hidden spot in the garden, undeterred by the dark. It did make the garden appear different, but he was not afraid. Why should he be? He was meeting Fedelmid and going off to the homeland of the fairies. He didn't even glance to the new little garden gnomes that dotted the ground in the garden._

_Sherlock found their spot, and sat down on the grass. Then, he waited._

_Hours passed by. The exact number he had no way of guessing. He yawned, and looked out in to the dark trees. Where was Fedelmid?_

_At one point, he closed his eyes. It had only been for a minute, he thought. But when they opened again, the sun was cresting in the sky to the east. He was lying in the dewy grass, on his side, and feeling slightly cold._

_Fedelmid hadn't come._

_He heard footsteps approaching. A part of his mind made a hopeful leap, but the other half, the more logical, told him that the tread was wrong. This wasn't his light-footed friend. Those footsteps belonged to someone else._

_He looked up at his ginger-haired brother._

"_What are you doing out here, Sherlock?" Mycroft asked._

_Slowly, Sherlock's vision blurred, and he felt them stinging. He opened his mouth, and took in a deep breath before he let out a loud, long wail. As the tears began to fall, he uttered one phrase._

"_He promised!"_

_Mycroft sighed, and knelt in front of his little brother. Sherlock felt his big brother pick him up and let him nestle against his shoulder. Mycroft held Sherlock with one arm, reached the other to pick up the suitcase, and the two returned to the house._

_Days after the night in the garden, he took all of the presents his 'friend' had given him, and he placed them inside of a puzzle box that he had been given when he was four years old._

_After he put the box back together, he set it up on the highest shelf that he could reach. With a pout on his lips, he mumbled, "I don't have friends."_

_Then, he started to forget. Let his brain delete the information, until all memories and thoughts of magic and fairies and friends were gone from his head forever…_

* * *

He was taken out of his mind by the feeling of a hand on his shoulder, shaking him. He looked down, and his eyes roamed over the face of the other man in the kitchen with him. Let his brain reevaluate, recalibrate and rearrange _everything_ he had previously known and observed about his flat mate.

_Stands with the trained stance of a soldier at attention, head up, shoulders square. Hands are steady, except for the left when in dull and 'ordinary' situations- it shakes and limits his use of it. Eyes- both eyes- are deep blue up close, but mistaken for brown at a distance._

_But the color is the same as one of the eyes of boy in my garden… The shape of his nose, the color of his hair- ignoring the grey streaks… The tone and accent in his voice, the way he can read _me_ even though he misses everything else…_

"Sherlock? Oi, Sherlock? Come on, out of that head, mate," John said again, giving him another shake. "If you don't say something, I'm going to call an ambulance."

"I…" Sherlock tried to find the right words. He had to know. He had to make _certain_!

"One moment," the Detective said as he pulled away from the doctor and swung around the kitchen table to dart to his room. He threw open the door to his closet and went to his knees, rooting around in the floor until he found the box.

With the memories returned from the catacombs of the Mind Palace, Sherlock also remembered where he had placed that old box. He'd taken it with him, among his other possessions, through the years, merely because (he thought) it was something that belonged to him, and he refused to throw away things that were his, even if they served no purpose. He simply wanted to keep _his _things to himself. It was why he kept the skull, after all. He'd found it. Why let someone else take it away?

He pulled the box out and his fingers made quick work of the mechanisms that kept it shut. Pulled at various pieces here and there. When the lid popped up, he looked inside. The little mouse skull had crumbled at some point, and now was dust in the box. The stones, however, remained. As had the turtle's shell. He picked it up and turned it slowly in his fingers.

_They're here. They're all here. These things are real._

_He was real._

_He_ is_ real._

John's footsteps were soft and quiet as he approached the door, and halted at the entryway. He could feel the army-doctor's eyes against his back. Sherlock stood up and turned away from the closet.

"Care to tell me what's going through the hard-drive this time?" John asked him.

"…I want you to look at this," Sherlock said before he strode over to his flat mate. He paused, silently willing his slender fingers to stop shaking before he handed the turtle shell to the man in front of him.

John took it and turned the shell around in his hands.

"…This is a baby Tartan's shell. Must not have made it back to the water," John mused softly.

"Someone gave that to me long ago, John," Sherlock said. When he spoke, his voice had dropped down in pitch quite a few degrees. The change made John look up from the shell.

"Did they?" John asked. How did he look so oblivious? John was a horrible actor! He shouldn't have been able to do that!

Sherlock's patience was beginning to thin and his resolve wavering. Perhaps he was wrong? Delusional? Was he as mad as everyone thought he was, to be thinking that the imaginary playmate he had invented as a six-year old, however briefly, was real, and his current flat mate, at that?

_No. I'm _never_ wrong._

Finally, John let out a long sigh.

"Hang it," John muttered as he stared at the shell. "…To be honest I didn't think I'd ever find you again."

Without any conscious thought, Sherlock's hands went up and he grabbed John by his shoulders. He whipped the shorter man around to the nearest wall, and pinned him against it.

"You _promised_ me!" Sherlock snarled through his teeth.

"Bloody hell, Sherlock!" John –_ Fedelmid – _cried out.

"You promised me that you would come back and take me out of that place- that boring, horribly dull and absolutely _painful_ place- and you _didn't_! You simply vanished without a trace and I had to go through _Hell_ instead!" Where were these emotions coming from? Sherlock had locked them away. He had discarded his feelings as a way of protecting himself. Why was he suddenly so angry? Why did he feel so hurt? Yes, he'd left, but everyone leaves…

_I didn't start to think that until he came and left me…_

_I locked up my feelings because of _him…

"Do you think I _wanted_ to!?" John yelled right back at him. "I went back, Sherlock, to make good on my promise, but I couldn't get back in to the garden! I couldn't get anywhere near the damn place, because someone put a barrier there!"

"We never had a fence!" Sherlock argued.

"Not all fences are seen!" John spat.

Sherlock sucked a breath in through his nose, and he dropped his hold on John. He pulled away from him, then said, "…You will have to explain that to me…_Fedelmid._"

The doctor's chest heaved twice. Then he shut his eyes.

"They warned me about true names. Always comes back to bite you in the arse." When his eyes opened again, his left eye was brown, like chocolate, while the right remained deep blue. Sherlock's gaze flicked to either side of John's head. His ears had changed as well. They were no longer curved, but pointed at the tips.

"How?" Sherlock asked.

"Simple glamor," John said. "Easy to do, relatively little magic, and most people don't notice it. Not many people have true-sight anymore, and anyone with a history of it usually just needs to look twice, but they shake it off as nothing."

"Why?"

"Because I decided that being a fae wasn't that much fun, alone. So I decided to be more human and to actually help people and try to find someone to be with… So I wouldn't be bored."

The short man- fae- gestured to the door.

"We can talk about this in the living room… Or here," he said.

Sherlock marched to the bed and sat on the edge of it.

"Fine," John said, nodding once before he flicked his finger and the door shut itself.

"Showing off?" Sherlock inquired.

"No, just not bothering with the farce now that you remember."

They didn't speak for a few minutes. They just stared at each other. Perhaps getting used to the knowledge of whom and what the other person really was to them, again.

When the silence was too boring and he was too impatient to wait for the explanation, Sherlock spoke. "You said not all fences are visible. What did you mean?"

John's heterochromatic eyes blinked. Then he answered him. "There are different ways of keeping fae off of a property, Sherlock. Obvious way is with an iron fence. We're vulnerable to iron and steel- they're manufactured metals, and have nothing to do with the moon or sun. Another way is to pour salt around a property.

"When I went back to fetch you," he continued, pausing briefly to purse his lips. "There was a barrier up. I tried every corner of that place, and I couldn't get through. I looked for what possibly could have been keeping me out, and that's when I saw the garden gnomes."

"…Gnomes?" Sherlock was confused. But then he recalled seeing one by the white statue that his mother always favored. He had dismissed its presence, then, and had since that night, but now he realized that after that time, they always had those metal little ornaments in the gardens.

"Yes. Someone riddled that garden with iron gnomes, and other items. Someone found out about me, Sherlock, and they decided to keep me out."

"But I…" Suddenly it was clear. So very clear. His back bowed as his head dipped down and his pale eyes went to stare at the floor.

"Sherlock?"

"I told Mycroft," Sherlock whispered. "I told him, but he didn't believe me…"

John stepped nearer to the Detective. "…He probably got curious about why you were going off to that garden every day and found out."

Sherlock's eyelids fell and squeezed tightly together. Oh, of course. Of _course_ his older brother would do this. See someone who actually cared about Sherlock, and want to keep that person away. He would be that vindictive.

"He probably thought that it was for your own good, Sherlock," John said. "He might have…thought that he was protecting you- it's what a lot of people think."

"Do you realize what I went through, after that?" Sherlock asked the man in front of him.

John knelt, putting himself in front of Sherlock's legs. The steady, callused hands lifted and he said, "Give me your hands."

His reaction was automatic. His hands went in to John's, and it felt… Right. He felt warmth seeping in to him from where their hands joined.

"I'm sorry that you had to go through that," John said to him. "I wanted to take you away with me, back then. For hundreds of years, my kind took beautiful, clever, and exceptional humans and children, without a second thought. I didn't want to do that unless you were unhappy where you were. And when I did, a misguided little boy wanting to protect his little brother stopped me. None of us had any idea that that was actually worse for you than what I'd intended."

"I might have been happy with you," Sherlock said quietly. "…I know I would have been."

John licked his lips, and ducked his head. "There's… Things that we started. Back then. You and I. And if you want, we can properly finish them, and we can leave. Right now. Just vanish without a trace, go off to Tir-n'an-og, and we can be together forever." The fae paused.

Sherlock sensed the rest of that sentence. Half knew it already, because for all that he was indeed Fedelmid, his magic, child-hood playmate, he was also still very much John Watson, an Army doctor with a hero-complex.

"But," John went on, naturally, "What you've done, through all that pain, and all of that suffering, also helped shape you in to something… very amazing. And you've still helped so many people. Where would folks like Mrs. Hudson and Henry Knight be, Sherlock, without your help?"

Sherlock's eyes remained fixed on their joined hands.

"Here's what we'll do," John said. "… We'll make a promise. Someday, far from now, when you're either bored with solving crimes, or we're just getting too old for running after dangerous murderers across roof-tops, then we'll tell everyone that we're retiring. Then, we'll pack everything up… Put it in storage… and drive in to the country. And once we're there, we'll find a fairy road, and I'll take you to Tir-n'an-og."

Sherlock let the idea set in his mind for a pace. Did he want that? Honestly? Would he ever really find crime-solving to be boring? Would he ever tire of danger and the endless puzzles? Alone, he might have. But with John with him… But then, John would be with him anyway, wouldn't he?

_Either way, he will stay with me._

_I don't want him to leave me again. Ever._

"I can agree to that," Sherlock answered.

John smiled, and he said, "Then, Sir, do not reprehend. If you pardon, I shall mend."

Sherlock's eyebrows came together, causing his forehead to crease. Why was John misquoting Shakespeare? He felt the warmth from their still connected hands growing. He looked down. Were… Were they glowing?

"As I am called 'Ever Good', let it be, then, understood: This pact twixt you and I shall last till the seas run dry. And, now, to 'scape the serpent's tongue, we shall make amends ere long. Give me your hands, if we be friends, and Fedelmid shall make amends." He adjusted the position of their hands, while he spoke, until they touched, palm to palm, and laced his shorter fingers with Sherlock's long digits.

Sherlock opened his mouth to speak, but felt something in him snap tightly. As if someone had latched a cuff around his heart. It did not restrict him, however. Rather he now felt more…grounded. More connected. Specifically, he felt connected to John, now.

"What did you do?" Sherlock asked his friend.

"Just made sure that we can't get separated again. Not for long at least." John smiled up at him, and then finally stood up from the floor. "Oh, that's not friendly to the leg," John added with a quick laugh. He also let go of Sherlock's hands and stepped back.

"What happens now?" Sherlock knew that things had just changed for them. Surely they were changed, weren't they?

John shrugged. "Don't know. Never performed a binding before." He looked outside. "But I do know that I've got to get my glamor back up. It's hard to get people to actually treat me like a person when I've got the elfin-ears, you know."

With that John turned, opening the door to the kitchen (without magic this time) and left the room. Sherlock felt that strange 'connection' tug as John left, too. He was actually aware of it now, when the man wasn't in the room.

He was beginning to see the drawback to this.

But then he heard John call out, "Want to get something out? I'm starving," and he smirked. Sherlock's mind let him return to the matter that he had been focused on before.

"You just ate honeycombs, John, and did the shopping." he called back, going to his own feet and striding in to the kitchen. "And you know I don't eat during a case."

"Oh yeah, of course. Any idea on how to catch him, then?"

"I have approximately ten possible ideas, John, but I require more data before I can decide upon the best possible strategy."

* * *

AN: I hope that you all enjoyed this little drabble. If you're curious about the time this takes place in, it could either be pre-Reichenbach, for you angsty types, or post-Reichenbach for you sentimentals. As for the case involved here, well, I may never write the actual story out, but rest assured, our boys do solve it, either way.

Tata for now, readers.


End file.
